Officer Didn't Sign Ticket and Video shows he's wrong

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? IDAHO


Road trip driving into small town in Idaho with several other vehicles. My speedometer had broken an hour before.

I was pulled over and let the officer know the speedometer has just broken. He seemed understanding until I said I was coming into town with other vehicles to which he replied that he was going to go easy on me until I said that, and that there was no one around me. I replied there was a truck with a canopy I was coming into town with, he disagreed and I was cited for 57 in a 35.

Request for discovery including the dash cam provided the following attachments. The sworn affidavit was not signed by the officer I noticed.

The video also shows not one, but two trucks with canopies that I was coming into town with. The video also shows me driving before and after the indicated milepost at an average speed of 34.8 mph (roughly 1/3 mile in 35 seconds). When I drove past the officer I observed he was distracted and talking on his cell phone.

I'm not sure if it matters, but I may also be able to show a prejudice/discrimination against the type of vehicle I was driving as the officer asks several questions on audio regarding how fast I think my car can go.

How should I approach this? Can I just object when they start to admit the sworn statement as inadmissible evidence as the officer neglected to sign it? And then move for a dismissal of the case due to lack of evidence?


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FastbackJon said:

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? IDAHO


Road trip driving into small town in Idaho with several other vehicles. My speedometer had broken an hour before.

I was pulled over and let the officer know the speedometer has just broken. He seemed understanding until I said I was coming into town with other vehicles to which he replied that he was going to go easy on me until I said that, and that there was no one around me. I replied there was a truck with a canopy I was coming into town with, he disagreed and I was cited for 57 in a 35.

Request for discovery including the dash cam provided the following attachments. The sworn affidavit was not signed by the officer I noticed.

The video also shows not one, but two trucks with canopies that I was coming into town with. The video also shows me driving before and after the indicated milepost at an average speed of 34.8 mph (roughly 1/3 mile in 35 seconds). When I drove past the officer I observed he was distracted and talking on his cell phone.

I'm not sure if it matters, but I may also be able to show a prejudice/discrimination against the type of vehicle I was driving as the officer asks several questions on audio regarding how fast I think my car can go.

How should I approach this? Can I just object when they start to admit the sworn statement as inadmissible evidence as the officer neglected to sign it? And then move for a dismissal of the case due to lack of evidence?


http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/7307/img001xw.jpg
http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/26/img012b.jpg
http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/5589/img013sl.jpg
http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/4272/img014r.jpg
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/798/img015yz.jpg

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The citation is all that is needed in your state. If he signed or placed his name on that (the citation) then they are good to go. It does not matter if you say he was on the phone, can you prove it? What you need to do to prove your case about going under the speed limit is to find two points in the video that are unmovable, guard rails, marks on roadway (not signs) go back with a cam and tape measure. While on video, measure the distance from point A to point B. When you know the exact distance between the two points then you can figure by means of a stop watch that keeps certified time what your speed is. The whole thing with the other trucks is unimportant. Also the fact you feel that your car may have been the bases of your traffic stop are ridiculous, that officers see's better and faster cars then yours all day long. You have to remember that you are going up against this guy on his home turf with a judge he probably knows personally. You need to prove your case; they have to do little to prove theirs. Fight if you must, get a lawyer though, you must remember that you will be facing one and I'm sure he knows the law a little better than you. As a former officer I have seen people go into court with things like this hundreds if not a thousand times, they lose all the time. I know of only one way that can get you out of a ticket every time if you have a jury trial, but I will not post it...sorry.

formercop said:

TAlso the fact you feel that your car may have been the bases of your traffic stop are ridiculous, that officers see's better and faster cars then yours all day long.

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Well here's what you see all day long in northern Idaho and what was driving next to me:

http://i.ebayimg.com/17/!B0gc4zwBmk~$(KGrHqN,!jkE)pZHSqljBM,pcp!E!Q~~_35.JPG

And here's what I was driving. My car looks guilty just sitting there not moving.

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/1941/pict0150o.jpg

I've done the two points and distance thing using the officer's dash cam video which shows where my vehicle was at at what time, and Google earth lets you calculate distance over a path.

I figured he didn't sign the sworn statement under penalty of perjury because he was afraid the audio/video would purger what he wrote.

Not that this is what I plan on doing, but I saw a young Air Force man in court once whom contested his ticket and he told the Judge there was a truck next to him, and that he knew how radar worked and with the vehicle next to him they could not prove who it locked onto and the judge let him off.

FastbackJon said:

Well here's what you see all day long in northern Idaho and what was driving next to me:

http://i.ebayimg.com/17/!B0gc4zwBmk~$(KGrHqN,!jkE)pZHSqljBM,pcp!E!Q~~_35.JPG

And here's what I was driving. My car looks guilty just sitting there not moving.

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/1941/pict0150o.jpg

I've done the two points and distance thing using the officer's dash cam video which shows where my vehicle was at at what time, and Google earth lets you calculate distance over a path.

I figured he didn't sign the sworn statement under penalty of perjury because he was afraid the audio/video would purger what he wrote.

Not that this is what I plan on doing, but I saw a young Air Force man in court once whom contested his ticket and he told the Judge there was a truck next to him, and that he knew how radar worked and with the vehicle next to him they could not prove who it locked onto and the judge let him off.

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Radars no longer "locks on" they can show many different vehicles at once. They jump back and forth as vehicles pass by.

What I was saying was to do the measurement thing on video and the exact way I said for it to be used in court.

The citation is all that is needed from the officer, if the judge wants more he will ask for it.

You’re lucky you did not get a ticket for your defective equipment as well.

Good Luck!

formercop said:

Radars no longer "locks on" they can show many different vehicles at once. They jump back and forth as vehicles pass by.

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Radars I am familiar with will indicate the speed of "the fastest in the beam" or "the closest in the beam". They may be measuring multiple targets (and not 'locked' onto one...but the speed display WILL only show one and therefore in a sense is locked onto one display speed.)

What radars are you talking about??

OP, regardless of what you were told about "receiving a break based on these conditions" is largely irrelevant; what forces the officer to choose whether or not to issue a citation has nothing to do with what vehicles you were traveling with. The court will NOT care if the officer said he might have let you off easy had you not said you were traveling with anybody else. The only thing relevant to your situation is the speed you were traveling at, and you've no idea what that was. Your broken speedometer will NOT be a valid defense against the cite as you are responsible for ensuring the proper functions of your vehicle before taking it on the road.

That being said, if you take your vehicle to a mechanic that can vouch for the broken speedometer, and you can bring proof to court with you that you have since fixed the issue, it is POSSIBLE (not required by any means) that the court may show some leniency, whether it be in the form of a reduction in fee/fines/points assessed, or even an outright dismissal (not likely, but still possible).

The best thing you can do is seek the representation of a traffic attorney. Local attorneys know best what the courts want to hear, and as such, present the highest potential in yielding the most favorable results. Many attorneys will offer free/cheap consultations, so you should take advantage of this and sit down with a couple to see what insight they may have to offer.

It's just messed up to get a ticket because the officer thought I was lying when I wasn't.

Regarding ensuring the proper function of my vehicle before taking it on the road, I was 250 miles away from home on a road trip heading back and it broke 150 miles from home and I was pulled over 110 miles from home. Not like it was my daily driver and I had been driving it that way every day for months. Plus I have to have a working speedometer/odometer in that vehicle as I write down my mileage and when I fill it up so I don't run out of gas. I have an extensive fuel/mileage log book that shows when I filled up and where I was at when the speedometer broke.

I had also never driven into this town before. Per 49-654: "No person shall drive a vehicle at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent under the conditions and having regard to the actual and potential hazards then existing." Without a working speedometer all I can do is drive at a reasonable and prudent speed given the conditions. I even showed the officer the broken piece of cable that I pulled out of the transmission and would have been happy to give him a ride in it to see that it didn't work. I don't need a mechanic to fix it as I've built much of this old car myself.

Good points on taking it to a mechanic to vouch for it though that it was broken and is fixed and the point about the free consult with the attorney.

FastbackJon said:

The video also shows me driving before and after the indicated milepost at an average speed of 34.8 mph (roughly 1/3 mile in 35 seconds). When I drove past the officer I observed he was distracted and talking on his cell phone.

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That must be one hell of a camera. I have never seen a dash mounted video camera that can clearly record something as small as a mile marker while moving.

When you drove past the officer it was probably too late. And why would you think the video of you driving is even relevant? Usually the cameras activate with the emergency lights and by then the violation has already been committed. Even with pre-record it's not recording the violation in this case. I just don't see the video being relevant.

And the cell phone thing is pretty meaningless. I had a motorist in court once say that I could not have measured his speed properly because I was eating a bagel at the time! My response when asked about that by the judge was something like "well, if I was eating a bagel at the time, and I can't say for sure either way, it did not impact my ability to work and to determine the speed of a moving vehicle". Guilty.

adam_12 said:

...but the speed display WILL only show one...

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Wrong.

Depends on the set.

HighwayMan said:

And the cell phone thing is pretty meaningless. I had a motorist in court once say that I could not have measured his speed properly because I was eating a bagel at the time! My response when asked about that by the judge was something like "well, if I was eating a bagel at the time, and I can't say for sure either way, it did not impact my ability to work and to determine the speed of a moving vehicle". Guilty.

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I don't know, I would think a bagel would be just cause for a dismissal. I thought the only approved baked good with a hole to be consumed during patrol were donuts.

HighwayMan said:

That must be one hell of a camera. I have never seen a dash mounted video camera that can clearly record something as small as a mile marker while moving.

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The mile marker is affixed to a tall light post. The camera is good enough to see the car driving past the light post. The camera was running for a good 1/3 of a mile or more on my vehicle before the lights were activated.

FastbackJon said:

The mile marker is affixed to a tall light post. The camera is good enough to see the car driving past the light post.

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But not good enough to read the mile marker. So what good does that do? You don't know which mile marker was on the video.

FastbackJon said:

The camera was running for a good 1/3 of a mile or more on my vehicle before the lights were activated.

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How did you judge that distance? And you don't know where the speed measurement was made based on a video.

My vehicle went past the lightpost and I was able to use Google Street View and Google Earth combined to find the spot on the map, as well as the distance down to another marker (overhead sign) where the lights came on.

Street view gives you exactly that, a street view of exactly where you are on the top down map. Example:

spokane, wa - Google Maps

It doesn't do distance very well though, but you can use Google Earth to plot a path distance between two points. I'm not sure about that whole tape measure idea, that would be a long tape measure!!

The officer marked a milepost on the citation which is on the video of me doing 35. So I was clearly doing 35 through that milepost on video. On the unsigned attached affidavit he says he's up the road a bit further near where the limit changes from 45 to 35.

There's no indication on the citation of the distance between the officer's vehicle and the targeted vehicle, which could mean any one of the number of vehicles could have been targeted. I know some police cars have radar that aims backwards as well, how do we know it wasn't one of those or that the targeted vehicle wasn't in the 45 mph zone up the road when targeted?

I see the sworn affidavit also says the officer apparently saw me "passing numerous vehicles" until he pulled me over but the video shows none of that, not even one vehicle. He was pointed uphill in the center median and I was coming downhill. I passed him, he turned around and immediately turned on his audio/video. The audio/video may have been on earlier, but I didn't get a copy of that.

Google Earth doesn't do accurate enough measurements for use in measuring your speed either...

FastbackJon said:

The officer marked a milepost on the citation which is on the video of me doing 35. So I was clearly doing 35...

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How was it clear that you were doing 35 on a video?

FastbackJon said:

The officer marked a milepost on the citation...

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Which is an approximate location of the violation, not an exact location.

FastbackJon said:

There's no indication on the citation of the distance between the officer's vehicle and the targeted vehicle

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Nor should there be.

FastbackJon said:

I know some police cars have radar that aims backwards as well, how do we know it wasn't one of those or that the targeted vehicle wasn't in the 45 mph zone up the road when targeted?

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And how do "we" know it wasn't you?